No, seriously: Gosling and Refn can't get enough of each other. They're planning on a remake of this 1976 sci-fi classic, with Gosling playing the starring role of a guy living in a dystopian world where no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. The project has long been in development, with directors like Bryan Singer coming and going. Fingers crossed that Gosling and Refn can succeed where others have fallen short.

also dr morbius i know this probably won't and shouldn't prompt any public self-reflection but your whole highbrow tsk-tsk schtick is embarrassing and too revealing -- it demonstrates exactly the opposite of what i expect you want it to demonstrate (that you're a cynical sophisticate).

anyway this film is by no means perfect. but i'm deeply skeptical of the usual "style over substance" complaint. style _is_ substance. and this had a lot of style. i didn't like the use of slo-mo, though paradoxically (?) i wish that refn pushed the boundaries of taste (not in terms of violence but in terms of film language) a bit more. on that score i liked the brooding superimpositions.

anyway on the level of "would you recommend that other people see this" i'd say HELL YES.

also some reviews seem to complain about gosling + mulligan being "unconvincing." what wold convince them? that they have INTERESTS IN COMMON? or A DEEP INTELLECTUAL CONNECTION? i mean, it's not that kind of movie. their characters are axioms. there's one brief but spellbinding sequence where gosling is about to leave her apartment and there are a few silent close-ups where they lock eyes and it's like THIS IS ON. that's all we need, really.

also nice that the italo revival now has a feature film to its credit. :)

Haven't seen this yet, but I'm rather personally offended that Mulligan's character was Latina in the book. Refn cast Mulligan because apparently he none of the actually Latina actresses who tried out clicked with him and Mulligan was the first actress he felt "protective" towards. Kind of gross, tbh. Par for the course though, I guess. I still want to see it, but it's kind of put me off seeing it in the theatre.

For what it's worth, I also read that they were attempting to cast someone who actually had been in adult films for the part Christina Hendricks played, but they didn't get the results they wanted by going that direction, either. I thought that both seemed authentic to the film, in that the film does not really seem authentic to reality.

I thought that by keeping most things simple, the film succeeded by doing the few things it did reasonably well. Fleshing out anything would have been a risk. The most expository dialogue we get is from Brooks/Perlman and even then, it's still pretty general. I thought that was an interesting reflection of the lyrics of the songs used somewhat thematically -- in a more complex film, they'd have seemed trite but there was a simplicity to the plot depth that made it work.

My highbrow tsk-tsk schtick extends to being a Jackass and Spielberg fan, you may notice now n' then when I am flayed about the latter. (The former is fine bcz, u know, body fluids & sublimated homoism)

I have no well-formed opinions on this film; call them deep and well-grounded suspicions.

What I "wish to project" on this board is nothing, cuz I really don't give a fuck.

havent seen this yet, want to but wont have the cash til its on netflix prolly, but 3D characters in a movie about a face-stompin super-driver strike me as something that might be a bonus, not the draw.